General Chat

My neice used to live in Saltash. Any time I trekked down there you could see the Upholder class tied up gently decaying in the mud. It was a running joke that the RN could not even give them away ( to Pakistan). When the Canucks bought them it gave rise to much amusement. The boat which caught fire in the N Atlantic was rescued by an Irish trawler.

Mike Hancock knew no more about the deal than anybody else at the time. He was a lousy MP and would have been thrown out by the LDs if he hadn't resigned first.
The huge cost to the British taxpayer was def an issue at the time. At least it was until MOD came up with even worse disasters.

All of this is V tangential to my original post on Empire 2.

...and I have rellies who worked at Vosper Thorneycroft and Husbands Shipyards - - one of whom's father was a Lieutenant Commander - oh - that was my dad, though it was past wartime when dad worked for them.

I have a g grandfather who attended The Royal Hospital school, Greenwich, - he became a Master Mariner.
I also have two brothers who attended the post 1933 version of Greenwich - Holbrook.
It actually means nothing!
Neither brother went to sea - one is a successful potter - the other is a motorbike fanatic,worked for 'Esso', and now drives elderly people about in a minibus.

Rollo posted ............

"The boat which caught fire in the N Atlantic was rescued by an Irish trawler."


errrrrrrrrrr ........... NO!

An Irish PATROL SHIP was the first to arrive, but it was damaged by heavy seas and had to return to port, leaving the sub alone and dead in the water.

The fire happened in the middle of a gale while the crew on the sub were trying to solve a problem of water entering the conning tower but not draining .............. apparently something that had happened before the sub had been decommissioned.

The second ship arrived the next day and was a British naval vessel, which used its helicopter to take the 3 badly injured submariners to a hospital in Ireland. The Chicoutimi was towed back to Ireland, and then put on board a submarine transport vessel and brought to Canada.



Do get your facts straight, dear man ............... and admit when you are wrong, just as I have done :-D

I know it's cold right now Sylvia but I'm pretty sure Hell isn't freezing over just yet..... :-)

:-D :-D :-D :-D

The Emer class was built in Cork by a yard more used to building trawlers. The. Main difference was a Bofors gun forward and no fishing gear. At 1200 tons brave to take on the stalled sub.

If you or your partner had a brainstorm and bought a 10 Yr old car from a wrecking yard before setting off would you cheerily reckon you can trust a wrecker or at least get the AA to check it over?

Yet nobody was court martialed.

so ..........


......... from Canada's experience with the submarines and a later one with trains built in Britain for the aborted Night Star service to Paris, the lesson learnt was .................

don't trust the Brits further than you can throw them!

I understand that some of the assurances in the documents behind the sub sale and the train sale show that they lied between their teeth as to the state of both.

Canada fell for it. After all, you trust the Brits, don't you?

You might trust the Queen, but not her government, her naval service or the people who owned the Night Star.


I doubt the Canadian public, and even less the British public, will ever learn the depth of the deceptions!

"The Emer class was built in Cork by a yard more used to building trawlers. The. Main difference was a Bofors gun forward and no fishing gear. At 1200 tons brave to take on the stalled sub.".......that's why you said it was a trawler......oh right .......

"Canada of course has a problem withe the polar bears."


It's RUSSIA that has the problem with polar bears!!!

I grant you, both Russia and Canada have extremely cold areas bordering on the Arctic, but we don't have the huge problem with bears that is currently making the rounds on social media.

Wrong continent even, let alone wrong country :-D

Ah Caroline ...............

you finally deciphered where the trawler reference came from!

That boat didn't really help because it was damaged itself ........... and of course trawlers are often out in heavy seas and gales, so the damage must hav ebeen severe to drive it back into port.

:-D :-D

Sorry took me a while I was fighting off them Polar bears they're a real problem as you know....now other bears yes but polar bears not so much so...coyotes sure but they're not bears but they have four legs and they hunt similar/close enough??

Right need some sleep before I start digging out again all Tuesday...if I happen to find a groundhog in the snowdrifts can't say how I'll treat it.......

OH had to dig out the sidewalks (we're a corner lot) this morning ................. we ended up getting about 9 cm, and there's a city bylaw that says we have to have sidewalks and front paths cleared by 10 am or face a hefty fine.

More snow falling and overnight, we're told to expect another 10 com or so ........... so I guess he'll be out again in the morning!

Expecting another 25cms today plus freezing rain ice pellets and maybe even rain before the day is out...just to add a little fun going to get rather breezy too.....need to set a trap and get some polar bear fur to keep warm.....we have a bylaw too clear the sidewalks I think within 12 hours of a storm but many don't bother as they know the city will come and do it for them!! :-)

Polar pears .... so unreliable

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/polar-bears-starve-melting-sea-ice-global-warming-study-beaufort-sea-environment/

"Canada of course has a problem withe the polar bears."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/13/polar-bear-numbers-canadian-arctic-inuit-controversial-report

https://globalnews.ca/news/4655426/nunavut-polar-bear-population-climate-change/


Oh right sorry....your previous comment and then your last one I thought you were on about polar bears being a problem because they were dying off etc.....but depends on who you listen to doesn't it......

update on the side issue......they've just closed all the schools before a flake has fallen....they never close our schools due to funding....now watch it won't snow....I wish!!

It's snowing.....at least the bears will be happy...

It's like spring here today. Not a polar bear for miles.

If the Canadians are interested there's a fleet of Tornados that could be available from the end of the month.

No thanks we get Tornados in the summer....oh...the planes.... :-D

snowed until the early morning hours, then started again just in time for rush hour. Another 10 cm or so on top of yesterday's.

Unlike yesterday, all schools, colleges and universities in the Lower Mainland are closed, including in Vancouver ............... transit is running but slowly and with difficulty. Vancouver does have a lot of hills that are problematic in snow and ice, largely due to car drivers without proper winter tires spinning out or stalling.

Skytrain is fine in the underground portions but the elevated tracks are a problem with snow and ice accumulation . The trains don't seem to have snow clearers cum cow catchers on the front of them like the regular trains have.



I thought Rollo was referring to the polar bears that are in all the news at the moment, invading the small town in the Russia.